How to keep a dozen kindergarteners happy for a coupla hours

These're some parties! Are they in your area? FTR the science one w/slime and flubber and dry ice can be done at home w/out too much trouble. I'm not sure how you would tie it into a theme w/animals, though...

Five is young for competition and sportsmanship. I'd have lots of prizes, particularly for the "losers" at musical chairs.

You can be creative: The most ferocious clothespin dropper. The most graceful clothespin dropper. The prettiest clothespin dropper.....

Latest idea:

I found this guy in a search for "wholesale stuffed animals" for $1.75



12 inches tall. 12 of them for $21! (Not including tax and S&H, but still...)

I did acknowledge that my sew-animal-shapes-ahead-of-time idea was dumb (waaaaay too much work), but my current idea is to buy a dozen of those guys, UNstuff 'em, add a closure of some sort (velcro, snaps), and have stuffing 'em plus dressing 'em be an activity. Can make an assortment of tutus and superhero capes with very little problem. Can find some little something or another to put inside before closing. Et voila.

Awwwww!

Are 5- and 6-year-olds too old for a "Teddy Bear's Picnic" party? They can all bring their own teddies, and go home with a "new friend," and have various teddy stuff there. Boys like teddies too, don't they? (I am repeatedly running into the "too girly" problem...)

My boy likes teddys (and other stuffed animals) but I don't know how typical he is.

OK so...

I went to Garden Ridge on a scouting expedition -- they have a lot of cheap stuff and I wanted to see what was available and let things percolate a bit. Came to a huge bin of stuffed animals. "Red tags 50% off marked price." Hmm. Grabbed a big ol' teddy bear (about 24" long I think). Originally $9.99. On sale for $4.99. 50% off of that. Oooh.

So I have 12 big ol' bears in my basement. They're soft and cute and while they're too big for the whole stuffing idea I think, I'm still going to use them in one way or another.

Scenario 1: Have some outside venue party with a party room. Have the bears under wraps. When it is goody bag time, unveil 'em -- each will be holding a goody bag with teddy-bear themed stuff inside. Have already located a lot of cool little things from hither and yon to put in the bags and have the bags already, bought 12 shortly after her LAST party when I saw 'em on sale. She has a teddy bear costume that she's grown out of, (light brown with darker brown tummy) and I plan to cut that up to make teddy bear faces to paste on the bags (big circle with ears, smaller circle in a darker color for nose, maybe just leave it abstract like that or else add black eyes nose and smile with felt or something). The whole thing would cost about $4/ kid (bears + bags), which is low for goody bags. But would have that "wow!" factor I'm going for.

Scenario 2: At home party with bears at the center of it. Make tutus and fairy wings and superhero masks and capes for bears ahead of time. Have decorating them be an activity. (Fairy wings + masks, especially.) Good thing about the big ol' bears is that 3 out of those 4 things will fit kids, too -- tutus, fairy wings, and masks. (Capes might be small). Might do pointy princessy hats, too -- cheap party hats covered with satin and with a tulle fall, that can be decorated as well. Have lots of silk flowers, little jewels, felt, scissors, and glitter glue for decorating.

Then activities like "musical bears" (sozlet's idea for phrase) with bear-face cutouts on the floor, "teddy teddy bear" (duck duck goose), etc., etc.

Reminds me of the Teddy Bear's Picnic

Can you come up with six notable bears for some sort of pairing game?

Winnie the Pooh

Paddington

The Bernstein Bears...

That's a nice idea! I was thinking something similar but gave up on it -- that's a better way to go about it. When I was thinking of having an animal/ zoo party, I was thinking of putting a picture of each animal on the kids' backs and having a game be them trying to figure out what they were by asking yes or no questions. Like, a picture of a tiger, then asking, "am I black?" (no) "am I bigger than a dog?" (yes), etc...

I started to adjust that for bears with panda, polar bear, koala, etc., but it got too obscure too fast. If I could come up with 12 notable bears, that would work. 6 would be easier, surely -- can you tell me more how the pairing game would work?

Winnie the Pooh
Paddington
Berenstain Bears
Corduroy
Care Bears (can stretch things out, there are a lot of them)

hmmm

Baloo
Yogi bear

("real" bears rather than teddies)

Figure out a game where each kid needs a partner.

Then stick on the bear signs (they could be mixed with both real and fictional bears) and each kid would have to find the mate.

OK so some recent musings on the sozlet stories thread has nudged me towards having it at an outside venue. Recess (or the lack thereof) has been a problem at school and I find that I like the idea of providing some unstructured playtime for sozlet and a bunch of the kids she wants to get to know better. If it was in June, I'd have it at a local park with a play structure. But since it's in late November...

I found a place that seems very cool and the whole shebang -- food (except for cake), drinks, party room for 1.5 hrs, play area for unlimited time, gratuity and taxes for a dozen kids -- would come to about $140. Pretty reasonable. Can still do the bears + goodie bags there. Called and they're currently completely available the weekend I had in mind.

Definitely a little exhale and relaxation of shoulders when I think of how much less of a hassle it'll be.

What's a good time to have a party for this age? They'll provide pizzas, so seems like lunch-ish -- 1 to 2:30?

1-2:30 sounds reasonable.

An outdoor play party sounds like a lot less work for you. You won't need to corale them and get them playing games. Seems like a play-time - pizza - cake - playtime - goodybag routine would work well.

Oh just realized "outside venue" is confusing -- I mean not at home, not that it will be outdoors. It's an inside place with a big play area, climbing structures and such.

Late November here is YUCKY. (Upper 30's/ low 40's, rain and sleet.)

All the rest applies (a lot less work etc.)

Oh, I figured it was something like that given the weather. Still, physical free play, yay!

Yep!

One other thing is that whenever I've asked her, that's what she wants to do (we went there for a party once). I kinda overruled her last year since I already had most of the stuff and didn't want to start from scratch and I think that contributed to it not going as well as the year before (when we came up with the idea together) and it is her party after all...

Sozobe, having your party for 1,5 hours only, will most likely
result in the mothers staying there too, probably wanting a piece of the
cake and a drink as well.

You think?

It's only about 10-15 minutes away from where most people live (I don't think anyone would be further, some as close as 5 minutes) and it seems like people usually want to grab whatever free time they can get.

Actually I wouldn't mind though if they wanted to stay. I think they'd ask before having cake, and I plan to make a cake that'd serve way more than a dozen kids anyway. (Might go for two hours anyway though, interested in more feedback there).

Aussie favorite buscuits







Tiny teddies are definitly a winner even with "big" kids like me.